Liver Punch

Don't ruin this....it was a crane kick - end of discussion. And yeah, useful karate, which is good.

Lyoto Machida just knocked out Randy Couture with a Crane Kick...pretty cool I must say.

My belt seems to still work just fine and I've never been good about not letting it touch the ground. When I got my black belt, I decided I'd try to stick to that rule because it was kind of a big deal. My belt made it about 5 minutes without getting dropped. I don't think anyone in my circle would frown at you for giving your belt away. Heck, your belt is technically just a visual symbol of knowledge, discipline, and whatnot being passed from one person to another. This seems like a continuation of that.

Hmmmm....

Yeah what he said, not the double post, but everything before that. Master pain and I are of the same system. Our instructor's old teachers are a mix of inactive, moved away, old, and crazy. That means that he can't rely or lean on them from an organization standpoint, and even if he could, our lineage certainly isn't as popular, active, accessible, or organized as most systems of Karate or TKD. I, personally see this as an immense benefit because we've formed what amounts to a loose confederation with several other like-minded schools and instructors. If you came to our school to learn martial arts and decided you wanted to focus on being an MMA fighter, a pressure point specialist, a modern combat expert, or anything else: we've got an associate school for that. So, if it gets to the point where you're on your own, setting up a similar structure might be the way to go. You mentioned the other arts that you'd been a part of and you could go out and find a lone Shotokan, American Kenpo, Judo, and BJJ teacher and build an organization out of it. Our associate instructors have no say in what the others arts are, but we're all encouraged to cross train at the other schools as much as possible. When test time rolls around, everyone gets together, and not only do you have the ability to test in front of a board of black belts, but you have a few new Uke's to work with, fresh sparring/grappling partners. Edit: I'd like to add that this phrase is the most important thing in our organization. If we were all of the same style, but were not like-minded, it would be a nightmare. One of the things that make it great are the once a year or so late-night drinking and debating martial arts, philosophy, and the like. We've all got the same goal - to get better, and to produce competent students.

I should have clarified from the beginning about the target. The difference in your hand is being debated on the head/face. In the body, thumb-up is almost certainly the best way to go about it. As far as range, I'm liking the idea of switching based on the target. The question become, I suppose, whether or not the risk of injury is too great to facilitate a technique that costs you power.

So he's quarter gangster? Or just a slight coincidence?

Also, at 34/45 seconds...dows he fire sideways? I'm not sure why he didn't pull his gun out from the get-go though, it didn't seem to be terribly out of reach. I suppose the situation was sprung on him and there wasn't a whole lot of time to react perfectly. Anyhow, no arguments with the effectiveness of a knife, particularly in select situations. However, if I had to put my money on anything in a fight outside of ten feet, it would probably be a gun.

No, not the pirate...the punch. A few friends and myself had a discussion today about the method in which it should be thrown. It was agreed that a horizontal fist was bad news because the smallest two knuckles tend to take the brunt of the impact. From there it was a debate about throwing as if holding a beer mug in your hand vs throwing as if you were holding that mug upside down. The basic argument in favor of the standard "beer mug" method was that it creates more power. I have to agree, I can create a noticeable amount more power when I throw in this fashion. The opposing argument is that throwing with your "beer mug upside down" makes it far less likely to strike with your smallest two fingers on accident, and it creates a much greater likelihood of striking the points just behind the ear (I'm terrible with pressure points...triple-warmer something of another?) Anyhow, I do remember Gil Martinez specifically switching me to the upside down hand method, but....what say the rest of you?

Hmm...where to begin? Ok - from a sport point of view, I have no desire to be taken down. I'm not happy on my back, I'm not overly excited to get in a scramble, so if I can stuff the takedown and keep things on their feet, that's what I'd prefer. From a street point of view, this goes double. Things are a lot more dangerous on the pavement than they are on padding with a referee involved and whatnot. However, as to what happens when JJJ meets BJJ in a street fight from a stylistic point of view, there's a lot involved. Plenty of modern BJJ practitioners are sport/tournament guys who are looking to score as many points as possible. On the other hand, JJJ led to the whole Judo thing, and I'm not entirely convinced it's the most useful art in a dark alley. So, what are our individual martial artists learning and from whom? Is one learning a pure 17th century form of Japanese Jiu Jitsu? Or are they learning something closer to Judo? Or better yet: did the Jiu Jitsu practitioner's teacher train in Karate, Kali, Boxing, Wrestling, or another art in his lifetime? Is are other practitioner learning sport BJJ so he can win a grappling tournament? Or is he learning to grapple on the street against multiple opponents and with weapons? I think the winner is simply the individual who has received the most modern and evolved training. If you're learning pure and original JJJ, you can't be receiving gun training. And likewise, if you're learning BJJ that's overly focused on the ground game and features a whole lot of guard pulls and lacks any sort of credibility on the feet...that's a problem. I applaud you for training to not be taken down. That's a good thing - and a lot of traditional martial artists ignore that possibility. But, if we're talking about pure JJJ, then training to avoid a greco takedown or catch-style single or double leg takedown isn't a huge possibility. To conclude: If your style of JJJ involves striking, weapons, multiple attackers, ground fighting, street style situational awareness, and avoiding all sorts of takedowns...you've evolved and your form of "JJJ" is probably superior to pure BJJ. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it fits the bill of a hundred year old Japanese art. Also, on a side note, if there's any training challenges being laid down in the Chicago metro area, I'd love to do some cross training with someone with a record as accomplished as one with over 100 wins. Training offer accepted.

Assuming that the knuckle can be strengthened, which is certainly possible to a point, is there any evidence to suggest that any of this training can strengthen the carpal and metacarpal bones? In the boxing/kickboxing/mma world, these are the bones that people break the most.

21 ft. with a drawn gun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg7_NNeOfAA 22 ft. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWTecKNyg8 While I don't think the knife can be underestimated, I'd like to see Dan Inosanto doing that video with Bob Munden (quick draw world champion with a .02 second draw time) Quite frankly, if any of us are attacked by a highly skilled knife specialist, we're probably in trouble. But that doesn't just go for knives. Given their behavior (which seemed like pretty poor police work) any college wrestler could have taken them down and started to put the hurt on them If the "police" in that video were attacked by a world class nunchuck, meteor hammer, three sectioned staff, or even peanut butter and jelly champion they were going down in a bad way. just my $.02

Hey, I did my part by posting a victory... But, you did pretty good, that was nice ring control. I haven't watched point fighting in so long that I got pumped up a few times because I thought you were in perfect position to knock her out. Of course then I realized that wasn't really an option... But if it were, I'd put plenty of money on you in a rematch.

What I find to give most Muay Thai strikers trouble when working with a boxer is that if the two individuals have trained an equal amount of time and have gained an equal amount of skill in their respective disciplines, their skill set in regards to punching is a little different. For example, if each fighter has been training for 6 months, and during each individual month learned one technique and a basic mastery of it, they might end up looking like this: Boxer: Jab, Cross, Hook, Uppercut, Slipping, and Bobbing Thai Fighter (not to be confused with Tie Fighter): Push Kick, Roundhouse Kick, Knee, Elbow, Jab. If the thai fighter is dividing his time equally between techniques, he has roughly 1/6 of the punching skill that a boxer has. The secret to blending boxing and anything else is to bring the skill, speed, timing, and fluidity of the punches boxers have to that respective art.

4-18 Worked guard passes and open guard attacks from bottom, about an hour of free roll, and then a half hour of muay thai sparring. 4-19 Free roll for an hour, worked a few drills on bottom, muay thai technique and conditioning for an hour.

Some people will disagree with me on what I'm about to say, and that's perfectly fine. I respect their opinion and beliefs, but a mix of common sense, educated thinking, and experience lead me to answer your questions in order as follows: No No I've trained BJJ, Muay Thai, Judo, and Wrestling injured. I do not have experience with systema. Fearing your instructor should result in fight or flight response: falling off balance is indicative of nervous system damage.

I think I'm getting a general idea of what you're asking now. We'll assume that the phrase "take advantage of" doesn't mean "I'm better than you and I'm being an outright jerk by purposely causing pain" but rather does mean "we are sparring as equals and you have made a mistake that my technique will capitalize on" With that out of the way, I can address this as I, or most of my instructors at the various schools I train at would view it, with the following scenario: An individual accepted to spar normally with someone on an un-matted area. The risk in this is inherent and obvious due to the lack of protective floor covering. Person A made a mistake by putting themselves in a position where they were off balance. Person B executed a proper and legitimate technique which caused person A to fall to the ground. Person A failed to fall properly and was therefore injured. Given that scenario, both individuals agreed to partake in a combat sport on a surface that did not provide the amount of protection. In my opinion (and for the purpose of this scenario), nothing is wrong with that because they are both consenting adults who understood the risk inherent in the activity taking place. Person B has committed no wrong because they only executed the technique that is found within the art. Person A has committed 3 wrongs by becoming off-balance, not protecting themselves from a head kick, and by falling incorrectly. So, in Muay Thai specifically, this is not a risk one must accept. In general, performing any activity on a hard surface lends itself to resulting in an injury if someone falls down on it. Running on sand is much safer than running on concrete, jumping on trampolines is safer than jumping on jagged rocks, performing a balance beam exercise is safer on a wooden beam than on a razor blade, etc. In this situation, many mistakes were made, non of which happened solely because the two individuals were training in Muay Thai or martial arts in general. While bumps, bruises, and other superficial damage is something that one must accept when striking and being struck by another human being, experiencing serious injury by bouncing one's head off of a wooden floor is not something that an overwhelming majority of Muay Thai practitioners have experienced.

4/16 - 5 Rounds of grappling with striking, 6 rounds of full-on MMA at about 60%

4/14 20 minutes of fairly intense shadow boxing, 5 rounds of thai pads, 10 rounds of sparring with 2 rounds of rest, and a half hour of no-gi grappling.

Tallgeese, I think the best we can do is link to youtube or...I don't think we can embed videos on this site - at least I haven't had any luck using BBCode, unless I'm missing something (although it's pretty simple) So, if that's the case - and I think it is - you'll either have to link it, upload it and link it, or download it, upload it, and then link it. Nothing to it really...it all depends on where on the internet it currently exists - other than a facebook account with any sort of privacy settings. Anyhow, this is me at 30 lbs heavier than I like to be, and as a last second replacement in an MMA fight. Some ugly technique in there, I'm not happy about it...but, I settle in decently at the end for a so-so finish. That guy was bleeding all over the place from somewhere... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmS2bNQdcgo

The entire Cobra Kai class in The First Karate Kid. I don't care who he was. I plan to kill every one armed man I come across here.

The toughness and desire of a person who fractures a finger through typical sports or work will probably come into play much more than if multiple fingers are snapped and continued to be bent after the fact. I've seen guys tough out fractured bones before, even pretty major ones, but when the bone snaps and shoots out of the flesh...their mental resolve usually goes out the window with it.

Craghoppers has outdoor pants with stretch panels build in everywhere a human bends and moves...they've got a ton of pockets. It's worth checking out.

I fight left forward, and against a southpaw I throw constant low kicks with my lead to their lead. It's quick, it's a short distance, generally safe, and the damage certainly adds up. Against a standard, I throw the inside leg kick with my lead to their lead if possible. Otherwise, I get my rear leg around and back as quickly as possible.

Grappling in general...wrestling. Ugh. BJJ - sweeps and standups when my lack of wrestling shows its head.